Voices from the Shopfloor: Dramas of the Employment Relationship

Citation

Boas, C. (2003), "Voices from the Shopfloor: Dramas of the Employment Relationship", Personnel Review, Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 119-122. https://doi.org/10.1108/pr.2003.32.1.119.3

Anne‐Marie Greene’s approach to ethnography in industrial settings in both the advanced industrial societies and those which are less advanced is refreshing and farsighted. She connects the colourful accounts presented through her own research and that of other ethnographers in the developing world, with emergent themes of paternalism, gender and family and collective action. Her emphasis in analysis of workplace situations is on gathering the voices of those who are generally, with few exceptions, not heard in industrial settings and using them to outline a picture of what they see affects their working lives.

She combines her own studies of lock and key companies in Britain, with those conducted since the 1980s by several other researchers. These are contrasted with studies conducted in Indian, Bangladeshi and African factories.

Importantly, Greene includes herself in the story she portrays. She acknowledges her influence on the picture she portrays in the stories of the workers, as she defines the significance she makes of her observations.

It is clear throughout the book that she places much importance on the “complex web of social interactions” (p. 3) that make up industrial relations. While I was reading this easy‐to‐digest and fascinating journey through ethnographic studies of industrial worksites, I got the impression that the book was being utilised as a tool for the justification of ethnography as a much underused method of searching for detailed descriptions of “relationships, interactions, memories and histories that make up industrial relations” (p. 3).

Rather than concentrating on quantitative research methods, Greene contends that by employing ethnographic approaches to the study of workplaces, we can find increased understanding of the social worlds researched. This is achieved through capturing the informal, microscopic aspects of workplaces within their own context. It is through the use of the voices of those who are not usually heard, she comments throughout the book, that we can find meaning behind the actions of workers and managers. The expression of the voices can then extend to the use of dialogue rather than monologues of “The Western expert” (p. 9). This then allows for the inclusion of the developing world in consideration of industrial relations. While the voices of the workers are included throughout the book, the emphasis for me was shared with the value of ethnography in gathering these stories.

Greene’s own research covered an extended period of time with much in‐depth consideration of the personal and relational aspects of working at the key and lock companies she studied. She then draws comparisons with ethnographies from developing countries, contending that each can learn from the other to inform them better within globalized economies.

The themes included cover employee perceptions and attitudes towards management, how workers view each other, and their relationship with their own trade unions. Management styles are explored in the lock and key companies from within a historical and community viewpoint, with a most interesting discussion hinging around a positive view of management. Greene’s assessment of paternalism in this instance is based on its personal nature. It carries with it a sense of “reciprocal rights and duties for both parties to the relationship” (p. 37). This concept is then nicely linked with the role of trade unions, who, in this case, have taken on the role of sponsoring community activities that were originally conducted by the company itself.

The workers link the demise of the paternalistic approach to managing change with the growth of the heightened sense of “them and us”. They comment on the rhetoric around communication from the new management, seeing little real action to support the managers’ contention that they now communicate more openly and extensively. The sense “of really belonging” (worker) to the company has gone. They express a sense of a loss of loyalty and dedication to work as a result of the changes to management style.

Along with Greene’s contention that the voices of workers are not often heard, she notes the even more marked neglect of the voices of women workers. The study of industrial work is gendered, she states, through a “homogeneity based around male experiences” (p. 49). This, she notes, was often based on historical practices and expectations by the workers themselves at the lock and key companies, and through published historical accounts. She links the neglect of women’s voices to a lack of understanding of family and community activities, which, she notes, are also ignored in workplace studies on industrial and employment relations.

The sociological discussion around gender and family in relation to work is placed within a community context. Greene again stresses the need to get the story from the women themselves, their families and communities in order to gather “more powerful and authentic accounts … than the traditional industrial relations case study” (p. 75). She does note that workplace studies in developing countries place more emphasis on this expanded aspect of work. These studies could provide useful lessons for incorporation into studies in more industrialised countries, Greene comments.

In the chapter dedicated collective action, Greene alludes to the notion of workplaces as dramaturgical stages where people play out various roles, where “image is all important” (Trade Union Convenor, p. 79). In this chapter recommendations for working relationships are made, adding another dimension to the story being told. Explanations for the current status of unions are also presented through the historical and current situations at the lock and key companies. The perspectives of the workers are noted in what they saw as a change in direction of negotiations between unions and management commenting that “ … we always seem to come out a lot worse than we expect … in the past you could always negotiate with the company … now they argue … all the while” (p. 87). Others commented on the gap in “coordination between the union and the workforce” (p. 90). Greene notes that trade unions find opposition in many of the less industrialised countries, although she does not comment here on the demise of unionism in the Western world.

Greene ties her work together by emphasising the value of “seeing industrial relations as a series of social interactions rather than structures and issues” (p. 114) within the wider context of the lives of workers and their organizations. She looks at some of the pitfalls of ethnographic research in organizations, and gives some suggestions for using ethnographic studies to gain deeper understandings of workplaces. Finally, she suggests some future global research agendas to address multinational approaches to work. Her comments on new information technologies are rather scant, and seem to be tacked on to the final pages of the book as an afterthought.

This valuable book provides an encouraging view of research possibilities within a global perspective, and hence is a useful basis from which to generate further research of workplaces from the point of view of those who work in them. For those engaged in ethnographic studies of organizations, this work provides a constructive and supportive view of this type of approach to studying organizational behaviour. The book would be useful also for industrial relations students and academics; and also for those in practice in industrial workplaces.